Review: Fall of Cthulhu: Godwar #1

Posted by bob in Comics, Reviews on August 10th, 2008

Fall of Cthulhu: Godwar continues BOOM!’s mythos based on H.P. Lovecraft’s pulp stories.  The new series, debuting Wednesday, from writer Michael Alan Nelson and Mat Santolouco picks up where things were left off in a previous series and the entire first issue sets up the new events while recapping where we are.  As a result, for those just joining, you pretty quickly catch up with the players and situation so kudos to Nelson.

Having said that, the story structure takes up along with snippets focusing on the varying players and it definitely felt very formal, almost a checklist of people and places.  We pick up on Cy Morgan, our protagonist, now in the Arkham mental institution.  As he chats with his therapist, we cut around to see where Arkham himself is, seemingly preparing for something bad to happen.  In the Dreamlands, we meet Lucifer, a young woman being put into service by Harlot, who seems to be commanding one side of the coming war.  She tasks Lucifer with freeing Morgan from his confinement for as-yet unexplained reasons.  Then there’s Nodens, the entity seeking Arkham for its own reasons.

Earth seems poised to be the battleground and things should kick into higher gear with the next issue.  For a starting point, it’s not bad, leisurely setting things up for us all.  Nelson is aided and abetted by South American artist Mat Santolouco whose work is nice but lacks the texture to give us that Lovecraftian feel of dread on earth and elsewhere.  He’s ill served by Eduardo Medeiros flat color which should make each realm feel different.  Rather, there’s a sameness to Earth and the Dreamlands, Arkham’s home and his asylum.

In fact, for something based entirely on a series of incredibly atmospheric prose works, the storytelling and artwork remarkably avoid any sense of true horror which undercuts the comic.